Ohio University board likes price guarantee

Friday

Apr 19, 2013 at 12:01 AMApr 19, 2013 at 9:14 AM

Many Ohio University trustees said they support offering incoming students a guaranteed price to attend the Athens campus for four years, starting as early as fall 2015. But before the board of trustees votes on a proposal, officials want to make sure that the state's higher-education chancellor and the legislature would support the idea because each would have to approve the move.

Encarnacion Pyle, The Columbus Dispatch

Many Ohio University trustees said they support offering incoming students a guaranteed price to attend the Athens campus for four years, starting as early as fall 2015.

But before the board of trustees votes on a proposal, officials want to make sure that the state's higher-education chancellor and the legislature would support the idea because each would have to approve the move.

"We're really at the forefront of an initiative that could have a positive impact on the rest of the state," President Roderick J. McDavis told trustees during a board committee meeting yesterday.

McDavis, Provost Pamela Benoit and OU's chief financial officer Stephen T. Golding have been invited to discuss the idea further with state Republican leaders next week.

The board is to vote today on raising tuition and fees by 1.6 percent, room rates by 3.5 percent and food plans by 0.5 percent. That would work out to $10,446 in tuition and fees plus $9,950 for students living in a standard room with air conditioning and a 20-meal plan, the most common combination.

OU officials have not proposed a particular percentage jump in costs for the guarantee yet, but said they like the idea of including tuition, fees, and room and board rates as part of the packaged amount.

The guarantee would not apply to graduate programs, continuing education, online degrees or study-abroad programs, Benoit said. Upperclassmen who live off campus also wouldn't have to pay the room and board fees included in the guaranteed rate.

As an example, the trustees discussed a possible 5.88 percent hike for all new undergraduate students for the first year of the guarantee. That tuition price then would lock in for the next three years. The board then would vote annually on how much to increase the guarantee for each subsequent class.

In programs that take longer than four years to complete, such as engineering, the guarantee would be extended to cover the additional semesters.

Over the past decade, the annual increase in OU's total costs, have fluctuated wildly from 2.2 percent to 13 percent. A guarantee would "protect families from that kind of volatility," said trustee Janetta King.

It also would provide a financial incentive for students to graduate within four years so they don't have to pay higher costs. Right now, only 48 percent of OU students graduate within four years, which all of the trustees agreed is not high enough.

But student trustee Allison Arnold said some students don't like the idea because it would mean a "guaranteed increase." She said they also worried what would happen if Ohio University set a guaranteed rate higher than the tuition at a competing school and students started to leave.

Benoit said the university could adjust the guaranteed price if it set the figure too high or low or if the school was able to come up with some other money and wanted to decrease tuition.

Even after a guaranteed price has been set, most students would pay less once their grants, scholarships and loans were figured in, Golding said. The university plans to increase the pool of money for scholarships and the amount students would receive.

The school's proposal would fall in line with discussions by House Republicans to allow Ohio public schools to do a one-time 6 percent tuition increase as part of a guarantee. Existing students would continue to pay any annual increases approved by the board. Under the current state budget proposals, public schools would be limited to an annual tuition increase of 2 percent for the next two years.

The board also discussed issuing up to $175 million in debt for capital projects, but several trustees questioned whether the school shouldn't borrow more money to take advantage of low interest rates and make a bigger dent on the number of buildings needing repairs.